Umino 2,0
by tmomo
Summary: Watching others die is the hardest part of living but Kakashi is given a chance to try again and again and again. KakaIru AU Science fiction, Cloning, angst. WARNING: super angsty. Not for the faint of heart. For the 2016 Kakairu Summer Fest. Prompt 24: Kakashi keeps cloning the body of his dead lover, Iruka and downloading his consciousness/personality/memories etc.


This fic was part of the 2016 Summer Festive over at the Kakairu-fest  
Go check out all the other fics people have written and the awesome art!

Prompt 24: Kakashi keeps cloning the body of his dead lover, Iruka, and downloading his consciousness/personality/memories etc. Iruka was born with a genetic defect for which there is no curse and is sure to die each time and each time his data is downloaded it degrades.

* * *

 **UMINO 2.0**

The Uminos with their son, Iruka, were living in the apartment across from Kakashi and his widowed father.

For over ten years, they would walk out of their doors at the same time, stand in the elevator together and even ride the bus together; a link between them that was simply there and never questioned. When Iruka's parents fought, the two would sit down in the lobby with Kakashi reading from articles on his handheld and Iruka finishing a sketch he was assigned in class until Iruka's phone would ring at the midnight mark for him to head home.

It was only when Iruka would leave for a different university that they would be separated; Iruka for the Saruhiru School of Fine Arts and Kakashi graduating early at the prestigious Konoha University of Medical Science: both driven heavily by their dreams of success and scholarships. It was only until Kakashi's father died a year later that they would cross paths, standing next to each other again.

After a mere two minutes of them meeting again, they were both very aware of Iruka's wheeze.

It was called Cystic Fibrosis; a disease passed down from his grandmother that would slowly fill his lungs with mucus, eventually suffocating him. Iruka would be diagnosed on the first of June the year before and Kakashi would agree to treat him while standing in front of his father's newly filled grave.

At the time, he had known that Iruka wasn't coming for treatment to help him live longer than a CF's average forty years.

In the next few years, they became even closer than ever before and eventually moved in together when Iruka came down with a severe case of pneumonia. All the while though, Iruka's smile never faltered. He was strong and smart despite the dark coughing and the future that he couldn't have.

Every once in a while, Kakashi would catch Iruka staring out at nothing at all, breaths short and quick. Kakashi would make bad puns at every corner to lighten the mood that had Iruka sighing playfully.

And the fell into a routine of medications, breathing exercises and activities that helped to strengthen Iruka's lungs.

"Seems like you might be looking at remission soon," Kakashi had said confidently with a smile but Iruka didn't respond or smile as he slid his shirt back on.

"My father was a CF carrier. My mother was a carrier too. Out of the 36 million people in the country, they had to meet and fall in love." Iruka said, back turned to Kakashi on the examining table. "There are 3,300 people with CF. That's a one in 11,000 chance of being born with it."

As if jinxed, their lives became a roller coaster after the death of Iruka's parents. Every day was a struggle to live; Iruka was sent to the hospital so many times a week that they simply hospitalized him for a whole month. It spurred Kakashi on in his work, leaving Iruka's care in the doctors' capable hands.

With all the money in his savings, Kakashi poured all his heart into his research at the University. The team had been able to engineer Iruka a new set of lungs with the help of medical science and stem cell research; brand new and perfectly functioning. They were born from his feelings and meant to extend Iruka's life but never to cure the Cystic Fibrosis from his genes. Until they did.

Kakashi and his team stayed astounded as the new pair of lungs remained clean and untouched of mucus and fluids each and every time they were checked over the course of a year. There was no coughing, wheezing or panting and Iruka was out and about as healthy as ever. That year was paradise and filled with moments that both cherished. A calm had begun to settle over them and the stress from their shoulders was lifting, almost enough for Kakashi to tell Iruka how he felt.

"You know, I've been thinking." Kakashi looked up from his hand of cards, seeing Iruka biting his lip. "If there are 3,300 people with CF in this country, then there must be about four times as many carriers."

"13,200 carriers." Kakashi was nodding, placing down a card. "With only one in four babies having the disease."

Humming, Iruka studied the table as a hand went up to rub the side of his face in contemplation. "So… Let's say that the world is equal and that half the babies with the disease are girls and half are boys."

"Half of them pass on the gene defect and half don't." Kakashi filled in.

"Because they can't." Iruka started Kakashi down and the other man fell silent, knowing that Iruka's infertility was a touchy subject. Going on, Iruka said, "the problem though, is the people who don't know that they're a carrier or if the people they have a kid with are carriers. So, right out of the gate, their baby has a one in eight chance of having the genetic mutation."

Having forgotten about the game, Kakashi had pulled out his phone and was writing all that Iruka said as a reminder.

"It was almost unavoidable." Iruka smirked and kicked Kakashi under the table, bringing the doctor's attention back up to him. "Hey, at least you don't have to worry about getting me pregnant."

"As if there was any chance of that in the first place," Kakashi was blushing and Iruka threw his head back to laugh at the wobbly smile he managed to tease out, the laugh dying down as the cheer started to fade from his eyes.

The moment was at the tip of his tongue, Kakashi feeling deep down the words building in his throat and…

His mouth opened and stayed lack when he looked up at Iruka, the words leaving his lips and the world around them stopping. Iruka had froze, staring at Kakashi as tears dripped down his cheeks from panicked eyes. "I'm going to die, Kakashi."

They stared at each other for a long moment, Kakashi feeling at a loss of everything. What could he say? What could he do? Those words were nothing but truths he couldn't dismiss. So, he slid his hand across the table and held Iruka's, saying, "I'm with you."

It was all he had.

All he could do was sit there and hold Iruka's hand.

That memory would haunt him for the rest of his life.

They had gone to bed as usual with the exception of Iruka sneaking into Kakashi's bed minutes later and the other man wrapping him in a cocoon of arms and blankets, both their hearts beating wildly.

The next day, he found his bed empty.

Iruka was on the living room couch; hand hanging off the edge with his small notebook of sketches flopped on the floor and eyes shut. The service was held the next day for the 26-year-old Iruka Umino.

After grieving, thinking and spending months alone, Kakashi had been visited by a man in a very formal suit who addressed him as Dr Hatake. The man explained how a guild of scientists were interested in Kakashi's work on stem cell research and his "near breakthrough" with Iruka, launching into a whole speech about how Kakashi's "experiment" could help find a cure for CF and possibly other diseases or genetic malfunctions.

They offered him a job in their guild in exchange for his knowledge, research and Iruka's DNA.

"Why?" Kakashi lifted his head up in confusion. "Why would you need his DNA?"

"That brief period your colleagues described in the report about how suddenly the patient was showing no signs of the fibrosis at all, might be the key to finding a cure for CF," he man paused as he breathed in deeply, giving Kakashi a small smile. "Dr Hatake, what if I could bring your patient back to life, Dr Hatake?"

* * *

"Kakashi."

Closing his eyes, he swallowed hard against the knot in his throat and ran his hands over his face one last time before sucking in a breath to hear those inevitable words.

"There's nothing else we can do. His FEV was at twenty percent when he first came in but now it's dropped all the way to ten." The doctor tucked his notes back under his arm and watched as Kakashi took the time he needed to process the information, hands clenching together between his knees before looking up at the doctor in resignation.

"How long does he have?" He asked.

Taking a deep breath, the doctor glanced down. "If we can keep him awake and on a respirator-"

"How long without all that?" Kakashi cut in.

At a loss for words, the other man said quietly, "about an hour."

When there was no response from Kakashi, the man went on to say, "I know this is happening fast but…"

"What would be easier? I mean..." Kakashi shuddered and quietly specified. "The least painful way."

There was no sound for a few moments while Kakashi waited for an answer, eyes fixed to the ground until the response, "we could cut his respirator and slowly sink him into a comatose-like state so that he wouldn't be awake to feel anything. It would be a slow wait for his lungs to fill but painless and quicker than waiting for them to give out on their own."

"Almost like speeding up the process," musing, Kakashi looked up and the doctor nodded.

"Without him being awake, I estimate about twenty minutes."

* * *

The nurses were gone and the doctor had stepped, giving their respects and privacy as best they could. Rapid beeping and the quick wheezes hit Kakashi's ears and he shuddered violently. His body refused to look up and see the mess of weak human that lay on the cold table of the operation room. He could barely bring himself to shuffle closer; his hand grazing stainless steel.

Eyes flicked up and he was finally met with the sight of Iruka's pale face with a tube sticking out of its mouth. A vacant stare gazed up to the ceiling as if caught in a daydream and forgetting that there were three other tubes sticking out of his arms. Bruises clouded the skin on his chest where the EMTs and medics had given him CPR and resuscitated him with their defibrillator. There might have been a broken rib but the worst yet was the mass of stitches where they had hoped to drain the mucus and other fluid build up as much as they could.

It was a sight he had seen too often but it still hurt. Kakashi couldn't stop the tears running down his face but he was quiet as he held Iruka's hand, waiting for the beep of life to speed up even more.

Long minutes creeped slowly by but all he could do was wait. The clock ticked, the sounds of outside were so faint that they were ghostly. The agony of waiting and the agony of guilt were a pain that he would never wish upon anyone else; no one but himself.

Finally, the noise of the heart monitor sped up until it tripped and crashed into a single whine that proclaimed the end.

Eight was the number of times Kakashi had to watch Iruka die. Each time they transferred the data of memories from one stem cell body to another, the cycle would simply start again from the day Iruka would move back to Konoha; the earliest of the long-term memories they could grasp from Iruka's memories and every time it would end the same. Iruka would be made to believe that he and Kakashi were living together as if everything was normal again and it would kill Kakashi to look at the man he fell in love with, knowing that this person was simply a copy of a dead man.

"Kakashi," the new Iruka looked up at the first man he'd see in this new life, lip trembling and brown eyes wide as they took in every detail of Kakashi's face. Hands reached out to touch Kakashi's cheeks and Iruka held back a gasp, "you're so old."

"I know," Kakashi smile was strained and thin as he explain, "you've been asleep for a long time."

Nodding slowly, Iruka used the help provided to stand; Kakashi studying the perfectly recreated body with an almost bitterness. It was all the same. There was nothing different from the last. This clone would die again in another four years and eight months.

* * *

"Kakashi," new Iruka grinned as he pulled out a pair of movie ticket from his jacket pocket, waving them in Kakashi's face and making him flinch in surprise. "I got us tickets to The Darkness Falls."

Another movie; Iruka had been on a spree lately since he had finally recovered from the lung transplant…. For the ninth time.

This period in Iruka's life was supposed to be the most critical: the part where the CF dissipated and Iruka was able to live with a proper body. Even though it was such a short period of time, there was always a degradation in Iruka's body that they had yet to find.

It was always right after the lung transplant.

The older man went back to the laptop sitting on the coffee table and continued on with the equation he was working on, mumbling, "weren't we going to see that Disney movie?"

"Well yeah," Iruka was pulling off his scarf and coat as he hurried to the kitchen, saying, "that's why these tickets are for Tuesday night. We're going tonight to that one but, this weekend, we get to marathon the other nine Star Wars movies so we can be prepared for Tuesday."

There was a grin on Iruka's face, one that Kakashi would normal smirk at but instead the was a pang at his chest again; his mind far off as he asked, "haven't we already watched those?"

Iruka laughed, shaking his head. "Of course not."

They had. Back when they had art club meetings in high school, the two of them would watch Star Wars and draw up the posters for other clubs as the only two members in the entire club.

Kakashi watched as Iruka started to make food and felt something inside him break even though he thought that there was nothing left inside of him to crush. This thing wasn't Iruka.

Rising, he hurried to his study and ripped his notes open, flipping through them quickly and jotting down notes as he was starting to see the pattern. It was there in blue ink copied from the printed notes: the pattern of regression and decay of new copies compared the control variable.

The data that they were inputting into the clones, the memories from Iruka's passed life, was slowly decaying and beginning to fragment. Every clone that they uploaded was supposed to have all of Iruka's memories up until the day before the real Iruka's death but it seemed as though the phenomena they had classified as forgetfulness at first was actually a serious gap between the original Iruka and his clones.

Dropping the pages from his hands, Kakashi fell into his chair, curling in on himself as he tried to push away the wave of nausea that came with remembering how happy he'd been when he'd see Iruka's eyes open again after the young man had been dead for so long. The joy he felt at seeing a fake, engineered human. Just a shell of the man he had fallen in love with.

* * *

"Iruka," the young man looked up, his face smooth and untouched from age and eye still glinting with life. A life that wasn't real.

He finished his last bite of food and crumpled up the wrapping; his eyes never leaving Iruka's. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?" Iruka swallowed before standing and following the older man out into the street back to the car. They drove for a long while; the mood growing darker as they neared their destination and Iruka gripped the door handle as they pulled into Konoha's cemetery.

"I don't want to see my parents, Kakashi." His voice was soft and Kakashi took a deep breath without saying anything.

They had finally rounded a corner when Kakashi stopped the car in the gravel and they both got out of the car, Iruka hesitating to follow Kakashi through the lines of tombstones, looking back to see the names and dates as they passed between them.

"There's something I haven't told you, Iruka." Kakashi slowed into a stop, the breeze running through his hair. "And I regret not telling you from the start but… It wasn't something that you needed to hear. Something that I was too ashamed to say really."

"Kakashi?" Iruka looked so confused and Kakashi felt his shoulder before turning to face the other man.

"Look at me, Iruka. Haven't you wondered why I'm so old and you're not?"

The young man's mouth slid open without words. He had noticed. The white hairs in Kakashi's hair was obvious, the wrinkles in his skin and the way he hunched. Iruka shivered and Kakashi continued, "I did something, Iruka. I agreed to something that is horrible and repulsive."

"I don't understand." The confusion on Iruka's face was killing him and the old man closed his eyes.

"There was something in your genetic code. Something that cured you of your fibrosis once we replaced your lungs with the stem cell ones."

"Cured?"

"Yes," Kakashi's throat was closing. "Something that could have been vital to curing everyone's cystic fibrosis or extending your life but… We missed our chance."

"Kakashi, I'm so confused." There was a long pause with Iruka stepping forward and reaching out for Kakashi's coat but the old man back away.

Without saying a word, Kakashi backed up until he could look at the tombstones next to him. Cold air breezing passed them and blew hair into Iruka's face as he stepped up to see what was written on it, freezing.

"Wh….." Kakashi walked away as the confusion on Iruka's face turned to fear and panic. "Kakashi?"

"I'm sorry." It was all Kakashi could say as he shoved his hands into his pockets. "They said they could bring you back. I don't even know what was going through my head but… I signed and then there you were… Smiling and happy."

"What did you do, Kakashi?" Iruka whispered, back to the old man.

"You died."

"No fucking shit." Iruka growled as he turned from his own tombstone to Kakashi with blazing eyes. "What did you do?"

"I agreed to copying your body and mind. To bring you back… To find the cure."

Iruka nodded, shaking his head and walking away from the tomb of the original Iruka and back again as Kakashi explained, "we've been trying for so many years to find it. That one part of the code and when exactly it changed… But we haven't even come close."

"So you cloned me…. I'm not… Me. I'm just a copy. A fake." Iruka was breathing heavily and on the verge of a panic attack but Kakashi didn't stop him or comfort him. After a long time or walking and mumbling to himself, Iruka stopped and asked into the air, "how many…"

After much hesitation, Kakashi said, "seven. Not including the first."

They stood there for a long time before heading back to the car.

* * *

"You want tea?"

"Sure," Iruka accepted the cup of tea gladly and watched Kakashi groan into his seat, sighing as he fell back onto his seat. He nursed his cup with his eyes still on the old man.

"I think you need to know something, Kakashi. I haven't been totally honest with you." There was a tinge of pain to his voice as he sipped the warmth and set it down on the table between them. "The reason I came back to Konoha… Back when your dad died, it wasn't because I thought you were skilled in your field or were a good doctor. It wasn't even because of the stem cell research you were doing for the university."

Kakashi didn't say a word, eyes running over Iruka's hands and lips as the young man said, "I came back because I was in love with you. I was so scared I was going to die before I was you again. Then you started doing things out of the kindness of your heart and… I fell more in love with you."

Iruka shifted, looking down at his cup, "I'm sorry… I took advantage of your kindness to get closer to you…"

Before Iruka could say anymore, Kakashi started chuckling, cheeks flushing and hand covering his mouth.

"What? What's so funny?"

Turning away, Kakashi shook his head as his eyes pricked with tears, still caught between a smirk and a grin, "Nothing, it's nothing."

* * *

Sitting in front of a loading screen, Kakashi watched as all the files of his work was slowly deleted and wiped from his computer forever. The cleaners the guild hired slowly drained and packed the tanks of engineered amniotic fluid as biological waste. Bodies, stem cells and untouched chemicals were taken as stock and labelled for different universities, factories and hospitals for second-hand use.

While their work with Cystic Fibrosis led to no real conclusion in correlation with stem cell research, they made some major breakthroughs with creating actual bodies that could move and function on their own. Many other guilds were already taking their work and applying in real life for amputees and patients with neurological dysfunctions, improving life for the living.

Despite hating himself over using Iruka's case for their own means, the work they had been improving prior to actually testing it out with Iruka was useful information that was helping people.

He had come to terms with himself, finally. Even though it hurt and killed him to think about it, the memories he had with each of those Irukas were precious. It was as if he had gotten to spend time with an Iruka from another time, space or universe and each ones of those clones was special in their own way. The time he had spent with each one for them was different and complex, as if seeing different outcomes from the previous Iruka.

But they would never be his Iruka; the one who had kissed him after they'd both cried at the kitchen table, clutching hands and simply being together. His Iruka was the one who never thought that he was loved even though they'd spent hours upon hours together; flopped against each other in the lobby, watching the whole Star Wars series while sitting on high school tables and spending hours talking in the middle of the night when Kakashi was trying to order medication from a pharmacist who lived almost on the other side of the world.

Kakashi stood and finally powered down the empty computer for the movers to pack, hiking up the steps of the lab to the pristine floors of the building lobby, lugging his full backpack to his car and throwing it in the backseat, getting in the front seat. Pulling out his phone, he powered it down completely and threw it into the back seat. When he backed out of the parking lot, he had already made up his mind. He was in and out of his apartment shortly after and replacing the flowers on Iruka's and his father's graves only moments later before he was back on the open road.

* * *

Sand was hot against the balls of his feet and Kakashi had to quickly hop from the parking lot to the edge of the receding waves, dropping the heavy box in his arms into the more dry part of the sand and sitting down next to it.

When he pulled off the cover, he unleashed a wave of nostalgia at the sight of all the special mementos that Iruka had left after passing. There was a pile of sketchbooks from class and an even smaller set of personal sketchbooks, tiny sculptures, an album of old pictures and even the collection of postcards tied together with an elastic from everywhere Iruka had been along with other odds and ends.

By the edge of the lazy waves, Kakashi went through the entire box until he had gotten to the last page of the smallest notebook, eyes tearing up for the last time as he snapped it shut.

* * *

"Iruka had been my best friend and, despite everything we'd been through, Iruka was meant to die. There was nothing extended or prolonged about Iruka's life by the end of the Iten Project's first trimester and the whole project was deemed unethical by the staff and I as we discovered the erosion of data that was pulled from the mental copy that the pathologists had obtained, further corrupting the experiment in its entirely. The project would like to thank all of its supporters throughout the course of the experiment. Even though the project did not succeed, there is much that was learned and the information we obtained will be put to good use for the future of mankind." Kakashi finally saved the document for the last time before emailing to his editor and sighing, running a hand through his hair.

With nothing left to do with his day, Kakashi juggled the idea of going out for a walk on the beach with Pakkun or hiding in the garage away from the dogs to maybe focus on the side table the old man from a few blocks down had asked him to fix.

A movie. It was time to relax in front of the TV with a movie. He was thinking sci-fi.

Slipping around his desk, the seventy year-old Kakashi knocked his cane against the side of his desk with a foul-mouthed curse as he bent to pick up a fallen notebook. He carefully and delicately placed it back on the desk just as it was before, calling his dogs to the couch in the living room.

Pages and cover worn from the year of use, the small sketchbook stood open on Kakashi's desk with the last page open to a sketch of a pair of hands clutching each other with familiar handwriting.

 _Thank you._

* * *

Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I did writing.


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